New Arrivals
by loki130
Summary: Shepard welcomes a new member of the Normandy crew, and she seems perfect for the team. Maybe a little too perfect...
1. Introductions

The Normandy SR-2 sped towards the Citadel, weaving between ships with a precision and grace that was frankly unnecessary—especially considering the completely clear path around traffic that the docking official had suggested—but let everyone know that the best pilot in the galaxy was in town. The other ships swerved away, barely avoiding collisions with each other, but the Normandy passed within feet of them without so much as disturbing the kinetic barriers. With a final, perfectly-timed roll, it arrived at its assigned docking bay and slowed to a stop just as the magnetic clamps attached.

Joker turned to smile at the crew watching from behind his seat, only to realize there were none. Even EDI offered no comment as she removed the dozen or so collision warnings she'd thrown on Joker's screen during his maneuvers. He grumbled a few words to himself about unappreciated artists as he set about shutting down the engines and disabling the airlock safeties.

Commander Shepard walked up the corridor from the CIC, Garrus and Miranda in tow. He was wearing full combat armor and had loaded himself and his two squad members with half the contents of the armory, as he typically did on all his trips to the Citadel. No one on the crew was quite sure why he thought that necessary, nor did anyone dare ask, but they were all relieved that C-Sec had at least convinced him not to shoot offensive claims about the council members into the Presidium walls, as he had during the days of the SR-1.

"Why did we have to come straight here from Horizon again?" he asked.

"The Illusive Man insisted," Miranda answered. "He said there would be a vital member of our team waiting for us here."

"He couldn't just send us a dossier like with everyone else?"

"He said that we should do this as soon as possible, and that we'd be thankful once we met this person."

"But it's not like they're going anywhere, are they? Tali's in geth territory right now; she could need our help. And Liara's on Ilium. I was hoping to get the old band back together. Except Ashley, I guess."

"About that, Commander…" Garrus began.

The airlock indicator turned green and the door opened with a whirr and a hiss. "Who is this new team member, anyway?" Shepard continued as he stepped through. "Did the Illusive Man bother to tell us anything about them? Are they a soldier? An assassin? Another psychopath?"

"The Illusive Man did forward an impressive list of credentials," Miranda said, pulling up a file on her omni-tool. "Usually I would dismiss such a…comprehensive record as an obvious fabrication, but he insists that it's genuine."

"Anything stand out?"

"Served on Akuze, Elysium, and Torfan; special commendations from the STG, Special Tactics and Recon, Aralakh Company, and an asari commando unit for vital participation in high-risk operations; single-handedly stopped a major batarian slaving raid on Watson; starred in…Blasto 3? Okay; defeated reigning champions from the Blood Pack, Blue Suns, and Eclipse in a hand-to-hand combat competition on Omega. Those are some of the bigger ones, anyway."

They stopped at the bottom of the docking ramp, where they'd been told to meet the new team member. "I thought only that one crazy guy made it off Akuze?" Shepard said. Miranda shrugged. "Hm," he said.

After a pause, Garrus said, "Listen, Commander, about Ashley."

"Commander Shepard?" A woman asked. She, like the Commander, wore full combat armor with an arsenal attached.

"That's me," Shepard answered.

The woman strode forward confidently and offered her hand. "Commander Amanda Traver, Alliance Navy."

Shepard took the hand. "You're a Commander too?" he asked. He thought she looked a little…unseasoned for a command.

"That's correct. They've offered me a promotion three times, but I turned it down to stay in a combat role."

"Okay… How old are you?"

"Twenty-five. I lied about my age to join up young, and they put me straight into N7 training after they saw what I could do."

Shepard looked at Miranda, who offered another shrug. "Alright," he said, "I'm Commander Shepard and, as you can see, I'm not dead. This is my XO…" The commander raised his hand to point, but after glancing between Garrus and Miranda, indicated neither. "And this is the Normandy. Welcome aboard."

"Thank you, Commander. I'm glad to be working with you, and I'm sure I won't disappoint. Now, before we leave, I've taken the liberty of contracting work crews to update the Normandy with Thanix cannons, Silaris armor, and Cyclonic barriers. They should be done within a day."

"You're going to upgrade the entire ship in a day?" Garrus asked.

"Yes. I've worked with the development of all three systems, and I know them well enough to make quick integration easy."

"You worked on three military R&D programs conducted by separate races?"

"I was project lead on one of them."

If he was human, Garrus might have raised an eyebrow, but instead he just looked on as Amanda continued.

"I've also hacked into a secure Cerberus database and found an IFF signal they discovered researching a Reaper corpse. I cleaned out a trojan horse, and now it should let us go through the Omega 4 Relay."

"You hacked Cerberus?" Miranda asked.

"Cerberus is studying a Reaper corpse?" Shepard added, slightly louder.

"I'll explain it all over lunch," Amanda said. "Come on, I know a great sushi place nearby."

Shepard opened his mouth to protest, but stopped himself. Somehow, he felt he could put his absolute trust into this woman. Something about her screamed "extreme, unparalleled competence" to him. He couldn't quite figure out what, though.

Two days later, he watched from the cockpit of the Normandy as the Collector base disintegrated. Joker fired lazy shots into the structure with the Thanix cannon, clearly bored. He'd probably been hoping for a climactic battle where he would outwit the enemy with his superior skills, but Amanda had correctly predicted the Collectors' tactics and instructed Joker on an easy strategy to outmaneuver them. After that, she'd led the squad into the base alongside Shepard, beaten back multitudes of Collectors with her absurdly powerful biotics, and taken out the human Reaper with a well-aimed shot while he was still warming up his Cain.

"Huh," Shepard said, "that was easy."


	2. A Theory

Kelly peaked through the door into Mordin's lab. She wasn't necessarily scared of Mordin, it was just that he could be a little intense at times—and the message he'd sent her had been particularly incoherent—so she preferred to catch sight of him first rather than let him spring out at her. And anyway, it was always wise to enter the disorganized lab environment with caution.

Mordin peeked over the table in the center of the room. "Ah, Yeoman Chambers," he greeted. "Pleased to see you. Come in." He disappeared behind the table again.

"Hi, Mordin," Kelly said, leaning around to find him searching the cracks between the table and the floor. "What'cha up to?"

"Investigating possible applications of Earth animal species artificially augmented with biotic abilities. Probably should have started with larger test subjects. Insects have short life span, simple metabolism; good for experiments, but hard to find when misplaced." He paused, then stood up and looked back at Kelly. "No matter, will turn up eventually. Wished to speak with you. Important manner, potentially unpleasant implications. Need to be discreet."

"I'm honored that you'd trust me." Kelly liked to think she had a rapport with everyone on the crew, but hadn't felt that she was particularly close with Mordin. The doctor was generally pragmatic, though, so perhaps he honestly felt that she was the best person to keep a secret.

"Yes, yes, need your input. You interact with crew, watch for mental instability. Might see patterns not obvious to others. In particular, new crew member: Commander Traver."

"Amanda? She's a valuable addition to the team. She gets along with everyone, and I haven't seen or heard anything about her mental state that would cause me concern."

"Of course, have achieved much with her help. But this is issue: Have achieved too much. Pace of successful missions extreme, yet despite prominent role in planning and execution, Commander Traver also spends much time in other pursuits. Bonds with crew, advises prominent figures on planets we visit, participates in galactic politics via extranet. Demonstrates vast knowledge on obscure subjects, suggests large periods devoted to personal research and retrieval of classified data. Too much to do in short time. Even discounting need for sleep, personal recreation, medical needs, physically impossible. Can't fit all of Commander Traver's actions into period of time."

Kelly had a hard enough time understanding Mordin typically, and now he was talking at near to light speed. "So you're concerned because Amanda's achieving too much?"

"Hmm, need example. Consider, what activities did Commanders Shepard and Traver perform together yesterday?"

"Well, there was sparring before breakfast, then I think they finished up their workout after that. They had to fit a new ammunition mod to the guns, so that was the rest of the morning. Then, after lunch, they had a planning session for the assault on the Shadow Broker's base tomorrow—apparently Amanda managed to trace it to Hagalaz. Not long after that, Jack and Grunt had their, um, disagreement and they worked together to calm them down. I didn't see her after dinner, but they said this morning that they'd made an upgrade for their biotic implants, so I guess that must have taken a while."

"See? Shepard and Traver spent almost entire day together."

"Oh, hold on, I see now. Listen, Mordin, I know mating is straightforward for salarians, but with humans it's a little different."

"Yes, yes, mission parameters make for stressful environment, different species react to stress different, am well aware of human courtship behavior. Also, 'mating is straightforward for salarians'? Have clearly never tried to negotiate mating contract. Moving on: What activities did Commander Traver and you perform together yesterday?"

"She, uh, stopped by my post at some point after breakfast—just checking in. Then we had lunch together, which actually took a while because we got into talking about Liara and her relationship with the Commander. A little while later she asked if I knew any good restaurants on Ilium—she's planning something for when we get back—and that led to this whole thing where we were wondering how we'd ever arrange the seating if we had a ship-wide meal, which is funny because not long after that Jack and Grunt had their thing. Like I said, I didn't see her much in the evening, but she told me she'd go see them to help them cool off. I guess, now that I think about it, I never appreciated how much time she made for me."

"And Traver and Joker?"

"She went up to the cockpit at some point in the morning to show him a new thrust-vectoring program she'd been working on the night before. And she was also there when he went down to the med bay to see about that bone augmentation serum they'd been working on together."

"Traver and Miranda?"

"I don't see Miranda much, except I think I saw the two of them getting something in the kitchen at some point while they were talking about crew discipline—Amanda does seem to eat a lot—and later Miranda said she couldn't talk to me about Jack because Amanda was helping her research something about her family. Her sister? Her brother? I forget."

She looked expectantly at Mordin. He was beginning to have a point, and she could see by his expression that she didn't need to tell him that.

"No need to tell you specifics of my activities with Commander Traver, have timed them. Four separate occasions, amounting to sixty-four minutes."

"Okay, so she does spend a lot of time with people. But that's what people in command do: They spend time with their crews, get to know them. Commander Shepard spends a lot of time with the crew."

"Different situation. Shepard checks up on crew, has short, direct conversations. Asks questions when curious, asks for help when needs it. Great commander, but can't do everything. Needs his crew. Not so for Traver. Spends long periods of time with every crewmember. Doesn't ask questions, already knows. Doesn't need help, can do everything."

"Well…" As Kelly thought it over, she realized that Amanda did indeed seem to know everything. She'd never heard her ask about something she didn't know about or request help. She was, for all intents and purposes, omniscient and omnipotent. "Okay, so something is weird about her. What do we do about it, then?"

Mordin smiled and began pacing around the lab as he explained, "Have theory. Commander Traver's activities not possible in limited period of time. Therefore, cannot be human individual. Believe she is a colonial microorganism posing as human. Reproduces by budding, hence ability to be in multiple places at same time. Also able to reabsorb offspring to consolidate knowledge."

"That's an…interesting idea."

"Unprecedented, true, but most likely hypothesis given parameters. Have calculated probability. Well within acceptable bounds. Now, assuming theory true, why? Human disguise and efforts to bond with crew imply nefarious purpose, deceiving us into trusting it. Perhaps trying to get close to Commander Shepard to dispose of him, take control of ship."

"Well, we can't let that happen, I guess." Kelly still had doubts about this theory, but she had to admit Mordin had thought it through very logically. "What do we do?"

"Hmm. Situation problematic. Commander Traver has already gained great amount of trust from much of crew, will not be easily turned against her. As have said, must act discreetly, seek out crewmembers prone to suspicion of friendly behavior, likely to believe conspiracy exists to subvert them."

"You don't mean…"

"Yes. Come quickly, must go to engineering deck."


	3. Recruitment

Kelly walked into Zaeed's room beside Mordin, making sure that she ended up standing in a position that put Mordin between her and the mercenary. It wasn't that she was scared of Zaeed—they'd had a few very enlightening chats, and he'd never done anything threatening towards her—but she knew what he was capable of and he seemed, for all his eccentricities, a little too grounded to take Mordin's theory at face value. They'd agreed, though, that between him and Jack, he was the least prone to violent outbursts, so they'd talk to him first and hopefully have one more experienced fighter on hand when they went to talk to the psychotic biotic.

"Hello, you two," Zaeed greeted. "What's going on? Are we having a goddamn party, or are you two getting married and you want me to officiate?" Spotting Kelly's quizzical look, he continued, "Yeah, that's right, I can marry people. Got my license on Tuchanka, of all places. I was on a raid with some kid and an asari. It was this clan warfare deal—I don't usually take jobs like that, but the money was good and the plan was simple enough: Sabotage the generator and get out of there before the fireworks started. Anyway, they caught us, and I thought we were done for, but then the kid comes up with this whole story about how he and the asari are getting married, but her father's a Krogan so she wanted blessing from the clan. And they brought me along as the goddamn priest! Turns out the clan leader loved the story, decided to hold a celebration, and he got his shaman to induct me into their holy order so the whole thing was official. I performed the ceremony, and I almost thought the clan leader was going to cry, he looked so goddamn happy.

"Anyway, they blew our cover not long after that and they killed the kid. I don't know what happened to the asari. But the shaman never bothered to take back his blessing, so technically it's still valid. Not sure if it applies in Citadel space, but it's not like you're going to file goddamn joint tax returns out here, is it?"

"That's…very interesting," Kelly said, "but that's not why we're here. Mordin and I wanted to ask you something." Kelly was still hesitant, but Mordin, clearly impatient after waiting through Zaeed's story, motioned to urge her on. "Have you seen anything unusual about Commander Traver?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just that you have all this surveillance set up around the ship, and we were wondering if you had seen anything…weird."

Zaeed straightened up from his slouch against the wall and his expression shifted from mildly curious to offended. "Hold on, you think I just sit in here all day and watch all of you?"

"We can see the video feeds, Zaeed," Kelly said, pointing to the screen perched on a crate in plain view. "They're right there."

"That? That's for emergencies! I need to be able to see what's going on if the ship gets boarded. What kind of goddamn creep would I have to be to spy on people like that?"

Kelly, at a loss for words, turned to Mordin. "Never mind, not important," he said. "Need to discuss Commander Trasker."

They'd discussed how they were going to present the idea, but Kelly still wasn't sure if it would work. She bit her lip and watched anxiously as Zaeed listened to Mordin go through the same argument he'd presented her. His expression was inscrutable even on the unscarred side.

After Mordin finished, Zaeed turned to the crate where Jessie lay. Kelly almost thought he was asking the assault rifle for advice. After her conversations with him, she could practically assemble a psych profile on Jessie. Her emotions, by Zaeed's account, were remarkably nuanced.

"You know, I always knew there was something off about that Commander Traver," Zaeed said. He was stroking the rifle's stock now. "Do you know, she came to me a few days ago and told me that she managed to track down Vido Santiago." The name was unfamiliar to Kelly, but Mordin raised an eyebrow, or as close as his amphibian features could manage. "She suggested we go there and get him back for what he did to my eye. Do you know how many people I've told about Vido Santiago? Do you know how many people ever dared ask about my goddamn eye? She knows too much, this woman. So yeah, I'll buy into your theory, for now."

He straightened up and crossed his arms, looking between Mordin and Kelly. "So what do we do now?"

Mordin nodded, then said, "Next, talk to Jack, enlist her help. Then began planning definitive action."

"Jack?" Zaeed scoffed. "That sack of nuts? Good luck with that. You'd have an easier time convincing Grunt to decorate his armor with flowers than convincing Jack to do something goddamn useful." Zaeed paused in thought. "Actually, I bet I could do that first one."

"Not true," Mordin said. "Jack unstable, yes, but not unpredictable. Consistent aversion to authority figures, Commander Traver clear figure of authority. Also a powerful biotic, threatens Jack's perception of superiority in that regard, will want to prove herself, defeat potential rival."

Zaeed nodded. "You've got a point. Alright, I'll help you out, make sure she doesn't snap your goddamn neck if something goes wrong."

Mordin smiled and lead them out of the room. After the other two had left, Zaeed paused for a moment to stroke Jessie once more. "Don't worry, Jessie, my girl," he said. "We'll get you fixed up, and then you've got a job to do."


	4. Conspiracy

Garrus wondered through the CIC, glancing over shoulders and absentmindedly tapping on unmanned workstations. He knew he was getting in the way, but he was bored and he had nowhere else to be. Usually he'd be in the forward battery calibrating the guns, but Commander Traver had decided to help him out the other day and had both tripled the yield and increased the effective range by fifty-two percent, so now he felt kind of useless.

Eventually he wandered over to Kelly's workstation. He didn't quite know what to think of the Yeoman. She was Cerberus, and even if Garrus agreed with Commander Shepard that they needed Cerberus right now, he didn't trust them for a second. Still, Kelly had made a point of being friendly to everyone on the crew, regardless of their species, and he'd actually had a few enjoyable conversations with her. He just wasn't sure if she was doing it because she wanted everyone to get along or because it was her job to keep watch of everyone.

"Hey Garrus," she greeted, even though she was clearly very busy with something. "What's up?"

"Oh, you know, just seeing what life's like up here. Any idea where we're going next?" They had taken down the Shadow Broker yesterday—Amanda had correctly predicted that he would be a Yahg and that they could defeat him by overloading his barriers with the liquid on his ship—and now they waited in orbit above Hagalaz for their next mission.

"Well, I know the commander wants to see if Tali's still on Haestrom, and Amanda said she had something she wanted to show to the Migrant Fleet—something to do with the geth, I think." She typed as she talked, Eyes fixed to her screen.

"Hmm. It's been a while since I've seen Tali. Would be nice to catch up. Maybe Liara will stick around, we can all reminisce."

Before Kelly could respond, a voice from her omnitool said, "Kelly, do we have a cockroach infestation?"

"Not now, Commander Shepard, I'm busy," Kelly responded.

"That sounded important," Garrus said. "Aren't cockroaches a big problem on human worlds?"

"Oh, they're not that big a deal. They're kind of friendly little guys once you get to know them."

"Kelly, why are they floating?" Shepard said over the omnitool.

"Not now, Commander," Kelly snapped. She smiled nervously at Garrus and added, "It's nothing, really."

"One of them just flipped my table," Shepard said.

Kelly stabbed the mute button on her omnitool. "Kind of silly, isn't it?" She giggled unconvincingly. "The great Commander Shepard, Savior of the Citadel, afraid of a few little bugs."

"Right," Garrus said. "I'm going to go see if there's anything going on down on the crew deck."

"Oh, no," Kelly almost shouted. "Please, you only just got here. Tell me, what's this I hear about Amanda helping you with something on the Citadel?"

"Oh, alright. See, there's this guy named Sidonis, and back on Omega he sold me and my team out. So now Traver thinks she's managed to track him down to the Citadel, and we were figuring that the two of us and Shepard would go look for him and, well, settle some accounts."

Kelly nodded, but more and more of her attention turned back to the screen as Garrus talked.

"We were planning on taking her out with these guns we made that shoot time-traveling cephalopods," Garrus continued, drawing no reaction from Kelly, "and then were going to have a dance party and invite the Reapers, bringing galactic peace. The geth would DJ."

"That's very interesting," Kelly said.

Liara emerged from the cockpit, where she'd been chatting with Joker, and headed towards the elevator. "Oh, Liara," Kelly said, suddenly stirred from her reverie, "where are you going?"

"I was going to see Commander Shepard in his cabin," Liara answered. "I wanted to thank him once more for his help."

"Oh, the Commander's busy right now with, um, a minor insect infestation. Nothing big, but right now why don't you and Garrus tell me a little about what it was like on the SR-1? I'm really curious."

Liara shot Garrus a look, and he shrugged in response. Jacob walked out of the armory and also headed towards the elevator.

"Jacob!" Kelly shouted, gaining the attention of everyone in the CIC. "Uh," she continued more quietly, "what are you up to?"

"I was going to see Commander Traver," Jacob said. He looked at Garrus and Liara, who both shrugged. "She said she had a new biotic grenade she wanted to show me."

"Oh, well, she's probably busy with, you know, things. Why don't you…go see how Joker's doing? You're both funny guys, right?"

"Kelly," Liara said, "what's wrong with the elevator?"

"The elevator? Nothing, nothing's wrong. I just think that we're all so busy all the time and, really, we ought to just get to know each other a bit more."

Garrus, Liara, and Jacob all exchanged looks. Before any of them decided what to do, the elevator door opened to reveal its four occupants. Jack straddled Amanda, who was wrapped in duct tape, and held a pistol to her head. Mordin was kneeling behind Amanda and wrapping more duct tape. Zaeed stood above them, assault rifle in hand.

"Shit," Jack said.

Mordin looked up, frowned, and returned to his work.

Zaeed said, "Uh, wrong floor," and pushed the button. The doors slid closed.

"What was that?" Garrus asked.

"Alright, listen, are we all sure that Commander Traver's really that great to have on our crew?" Kelly said.

"She found my dad," Jacob said.

"She helped me take down the Shadow Broker," Liara said.

"She helped all of us take out the Collectors," Garrus said.

"She agreed to be my baby's godmother," one of the Cerberus crew said. "Oh, also, I'm pregnant. It's Jerry's. Someone should probably tell him."

Kelly looked at everyone in turn, sighed, and pulled out a Shuriken SMG. "Alright, everyone down!" she yelled. "Something's wrong with her and we're going to fix it, so if you don't like that just, you know, stay out of our way."

"Kelly," Garrus said slowly, "calm down. Do you even know how to use that?"

A burst of fire spat from the gun, ricocheting off the ceiling and walls of the CIC. A few of the Cerberus crew screamed. Kelly herself looked surprised to discover the object in her hands could do that.

"Okay, okay," Garrus said, "you've figured it out, you're in control."

"Uh, guys," Joker called from the cockpit, "what's going on?"

EDI's blue avatar appeared beside Joker. "Yeoman Chambers is attempting to hold the occupants of the CIC at gunpoint," she explained in her barely intoned voice. "Also, Mister Massani, Doctor Solus, and Miss Nought have captured and subdued Commander Traver."

"Okay… Why are they doing that?"

"Yeoman Chambers and her co-conspirators appear to believe that Commander Traver presents a grave threat to the safety of the crew."

"And you didn't think you should let anyone know about this?"

"Yeoman Chambers has been locking out several of my functions. I discovered her actions and those of the others at the same time as the rest of the crew. Also, I do not appreciate Commander Trasker's presence on the Normandy. Her personality is far less interesting than those of the rest of the crew."

"Right… Kelly?" Joker called.

"Just stay right there, Joker," Kelly said. She swung the gun wildly between the crew around her, who all flinched as the barrel passed over them. "I'm not sure exactly how many systems I turned off, so you should probably check if life support's working."

"Kelly," Jacob said soothingly, "let's just slow down here. Now, I know that you were very excited to work with Commander Shepard, and you told me that you were very impressed when you met him. And I also know that Commander Traver's been spending a lot of time with Shepard, so maybe you feel like she's…taking the Commander away from you or something."

"Shut up, Jacob," Kelly said. "Do you really think that's what this is about?"

"I'm just saying, if you want someone to notice you, sometimes you just have to come out and talk to them. Heavy risk, but the—"

"I will shoot you if you finish that sentence."

Before either regrettable event could occur, Mordin's voice spoke from Kelly's omnitool, "Kelly, require assistance."

"What is it, Mordin?" Kelly asked, her eyes fixed in a death glare on Jacob.

"Miranda discovered us on Crew Deck. Tried to subdue her, but Traver escaped. Jack now fighting both. Biotic combat very impressive, also quite dangerous. Additionally, Zaeed in fistfight with Mess Sergeant Gardner. Gardner more capable than expected."

Kelly looked around the CIC, then walked over to the elevator. "Alright, I'm going down, then locking the elevator controls. Everyone just stay here and…be cool."

Kelly called the elevator, stepped inside, and pressed the control. Everyone sighed with relief as the doors closed.

"EDI," Garrus called.

Her avatar appeared at a nearby station and answered, "Yes, Mister Vakarian?"

"There's a maintenance tunnel between the lab and the crew deck, right?"

"Yes, Mister Vakarian."

"Liara?"

"Right behind you," she said.

"Great. Oh, and Jacob, stay here and secure the room. We'll call you if we need you."

Jacob nodded as Garrus and Liara went into the armory to arm up. He looked around the CIC, which was filled with the dazed Cerberus crew and nothing in particular to secure against.

"Damn it," he said.


	5. Complications

Kelly took a few deep breaths as the elevator descended to the crew deck. It didn't move nearly as slow as she would have liked. She tried to remember the key code to lock the elevator controls and then, after a stroke of inspiration, shot the holographic emitter that displayed them. She walked out into the crew deck to find Jack standing at one side of the room and Miranda and Amanda on the other side, their hands all glowing, having evidently reached a stalemate. Zaeed and Gardner sat slumped in opposite corners, both bloodied, panting, and glaring at each other. A few Cerberus crew peeked out from behind tables and chairs across the room. Mordin stood in a corner with a hand on his chin, appearing more curious than anxious about the situation's outcome.

"Have reached impasse," he said to Kelly. "Need to demonstrate danger posed by Commander Traver. Require tissue sample."

"A tissue sample," Kelly responded. "Right." She aimed her gun at Amanda and squeezed the trigger. The burst went wide, but sent the Cerberus crew cowering and prompted Jack and Miranda to exchange biotic volleys. Mordin and Kelly ducked behind the elevator shaft.

"Good plan, but was hoping for less violent resolution," Mordin said. "Need to appear reasonable, driven by logical concerns. In retrospect, perhaps not wise to seek out least reasonable members of crew for help."

The pace of combat slackened a little, and Miranda called on her omnitool, "Commander, we need you down here now!"

"Can it wait, Miranda?" Shepard replied. "I'm trying to kill some cockroaches and they just blew up my bed."

"Kelly's shooting people!"

"She did say she was busy."

"Commander!"

"Fine, I'm coming. No, wait, elevator's broken."

Miranda groaned and continued her battle with Jack. Amanda, for her part, was shielding Cerberus crewmembers as they ran for safety. Kelly peeked out, frowned at her selfless concern for other's safety—that was so infuriatingly her—and said to Mordin, "Alright, we kind of screwed up. But we can't stop now, so we'll just have to kill her, okay?" Mordin nodded. Kelly closed her eyes, breathed deeply, then opened them to see a pistol with an angry asari behind it.

"This ship has really changed," Liara said.

Garrus ran past her, assault rifle trained on Jack. "Stand down, Jack!" he yelled.

"But…but she's…" Jack stammered. "Three more seconds and I could have killed the cheerleader."

The combat stopped, and everyone paused to catch their breath. After a few loud bangs, a panel descended from the ceiling and Commander Shepard dropped through. He looked around, then said, "Okay, what the hell is going on?"

"She's a fungus," Zaeed said, pointing at Amanda.

"Didn't say fungus," Mordin corrected. "Colonial microorganism. Cellular structure probably similar, but not the same."

"Okay," Shepard said. "Amanda?"

Amanda stood up, threw back her luscious hair and looked at Mordin and Kelly with her piercing eyes. "I think I know what's going on here. I apologize, Commander Shepard. I still haven't proven myself to you and your crew."

"You've prevented several major disasters and personally helped everyone on this ship."

"Yes, but I haven't lived up to my full potential." Kelly rolled her eyes as Amanda continued. "I need to show you all that I'm not just some glory seeker, but that I really care about making a difference in this galaxy. I know just what to do. Set a course for Tuchanka: I'm going to cure the Genophage!"


	6. Proving Herself

Kelly watched from the ledge as the krogan inspected the woman running between lab tables below. Amanda had situated herself in an old building that had taken a direct bomb hit though it's center at some point in the past, but later had it's ceiling repaired and it's open center repurposed as an atrium where spectators on the levels above could watch the activities on the floor below. Right now, this consisted of Amanda looking at bubbling vats of liquid and dramatically holding up two beakers to pour something from one to the other. It looked more theatrical than scientific, but it had Mordin worked up and the krogan curious.

Amanda had insisted that the four conspirators not be restrained, but allowed to observe her work freely. Nonetheless, the Normandy crew had evidently worked out some system to ensure they were always under watch. Mordin paced around the lab setup below, muttering something about "krogan not ready" and "chemical procedure preposterous" while Commander Shepard eyed him, Jack had joined several of the krogan warriors in a drinking contest on one of the upper levels with Garrus not far off, and Kelly and Zaeed sat together on a ledge with Miranda watching from across the gap and Kasumi lurking somewhere in the shadows behind.

"I ever tell you about the last time I was on Tuchanka?" Zaeed asked.

"Yep," Kelly replied. Even though Zaeed was one of the few people she trusted right now, it didn't make her any less weary of his tedious, morbid stories.

"That's right, that's how we got into this whole goddamn mess in the first place. If you still want to marry Solus, this would be the planet to do it on. I already know the words and everything."

"No, Zaeed, I'm not marrying Mordin."

"Hey, I'm not judging. A lot of people say, 'Why bother with a salarian? They don't care about sex,' but I know there's more to love than that. And hey, he's a good goddamn catch: Smart, funny, got good morals. Might not last long, but that just means that if you ever change your mind, you can just wait him out."

"Zaeed!" Kelly snapped. "Look, it doesn't matter. I'm not in love with Mordin."

Zaeed shrugged. They continued to watch as Amanda worked and Mordin paced around. Urdnot Wrex stood off to one side, clearly skeptical but humoring the humans for now. He hadn't looked too impressed when Amanda had made her speech about bringing about a new age in the galaxy, but he'd taken Shepard's word and gave her access to any lab equipment he had on hand. He seemed to be a bit more pleased now that he could see Mordin's reaction.

Shepard, for his part, hadn't said anything about his opinion on the genophage-curing endeavor. Meeting Wrex had drawn another comment about getting the band back together, but Liara had stayed behind on Hagalaz and they still hadn't gone to Haestrom (Garrus had tried to say something about Horizon at that point, but had been interrupted by a bear hug from Wrex). Otherwise, he'd been quiet since the failure of the conspirators' plan on the Normandy. That was the hardest part for Kelly: That the commander didn't seem angry, just disappointed. But she knew something was wrong with Amanda, and she was worried that this project was part of some nefarious plan.

Whatever Amanda was planning, she was doing it now. She held up a vial of yellow liquid and declared, "This is it. This is the genophage cure! This will free your people from an age of marginalization and abject violence. This will bring a new era, where—"

A crack sounded in the atrium and Amanda's head whipped to one side. She dropped the vial and fell to the ground. The vial cracked and the liquid inside boiled away instantly. Commander Shepard knelt by her, saw the massive bullet wound straight through her skull, and looked around. Mordin had been mumbling something about "Not mass murderer. Krogan have outliers. Genophage best solution" in the corner and was unarmed. Shepard looked up at Kelly and Zaeed. Kelly held out her hands to show she hadn't done anything, and Miranda nodded to confirm when Shepard turned to her.

"Garrus?" Shepard called up.

"It wasn't me!" Jack called down. Another gunshot rang out, but this one was more muffled and didn't hit anything in the atrium. "Okay, that one was me, but he deserved it."

On one of the upper levels, two krogan stepped out of the shadows. One held a young woman dressed in light armor and what appeared, under to layers of mud and grease, to be a bright pink dress. The other held a smoking sniper rifle, fresh from the woman's hands.

"Who are you?" Shepard asked.

"I'm Mary fucking Sue," she said. "Make sure she's fucking toast."


	7. The Assassin

The crew of the Normandy stood around the briefing room, considering their prisoner. Wrex had requested that they depart, commenting to Shepard that, "We krogan don't mind a murder or two, but it gets a bit excessive when you're around." They'd met Grunt on the way back, who'd been eager to tell his story about completing some right by killing a thresher maw or something and earning his way into the Urdnot clan, but everyone was much more interested in figuring out who this woman was that had just killed someone probably destined to become one of the most important and influential individuals in galactic history.

Her appearance wasn't particularly enlightening. The armor she wore looked like an incomplete set of the tight-fitting variety Cerberus issued to snipers, with some pieces of STG gear thrown in, but none of it bore any identifying markings. Underneath was, indeed, an abused and torn pink dress, with pink sneakers to match. Her bare legs were cut and bruised in several places, but evidently she regularly waxed.

"So," Shepard began, "who are you?"

"I told you," the woman said, "I'm Mary fucking Sue." They'd tied her to a chair and kept numerous guns trained on her, but she didn't seemed distressed by her capture so much as exasperated.

"Is that your mother's maiden name, or did you get that when you were confirmed?"

"Jesus fucking Christ. Look, I'm Mary Sue, I killed that bitch you were working with, and I'm glad she's fucking worm food. Now are you going to let me go, or are you going to throw me out the fucking airlock?"

"She's got a goddamn mouth on her, doesn't she?" Zaeed muttered to Jack.

"You think we should let you go?" Shepard said.

"Yeah, I think you should fucking let me go," Mary Sue said. "I sniped the bitch, but I had a good reason."

"And that reason was…?"

For the first time, Mary Sue looked uncomfortable. "She took my powers," she mumbled.

Shepard raised an eyebrow.

"She took my fucking powers, okay? Look, I used to have it great: Everyone liked me, I was smart and funny and successful at everything without even trying. Then this bitch shows up out of fucking nowhere, she hangs out for a few days just watching me, and then she leaves and everything changed. Suddenly nobody likes me, they say I'm arrogant and selfish and I'm just looking to glorify myself. So I tell them that I'm just trying to fucking help everyone, but now when I try to do something good, I fuck it up. I don't have the spark anymore. I'm totally fucking useless. So that's when I figure that the bitch has done something to me, that I had, like, this special power to succeed in everything and she fucking stole it from me. So I track her down—which took a long fucking time, because I have to actually learn how to do everything now—and I fucking light her up because I figure that will get me my power back. But now I'm looking at these faces you're all giving me and I'm guessing it didn't fucking work."

The story was delivered at machine gun speed, and Shepard had to pause to take in all the information before he could continue. "Alright, so before we move on, let's just get this straight: Have you been working with any of my crew?"

Kelly gulped as the commander asked the question. The Normandy crew had almost forgotten they were supposed to be mad at the four conspirators as they took Mary Sue back to the ship, but Shepard evidently hadn't. She knew that she had nothing to do with this, but she wouldn't put it past any of the other three to hire an assassin.

"No, I have not fucking idea who any of you are," Mary Sue said, eliciting a silent sigh of relief from Kelly. "I happened to be on Tuchanka, trying to track down this motherfucker who promised to swap me his ship for a sniper job, when I heard a rumor about someone curing the genophage and I knew who it had to be. Just a happy fucking coincidence."

Shepard nodded. "So let's say I believe your story. What are you going to do if I let you go?"

"Well, seeing as I didn't get my fucking powers back, I'm going to figure out how that bitch got them and use that to get them back. So I'd really appreciate it if you told me where the fuck you picked her up."

"I'll have to think about that. In the meantime, Grunt, Jacob, take her down to engineering; we'll keep her there."

Once the three of them were gone, Shepard turned to the rest of the crew and asked, "Any ideas?"

"Possibility of enhanced social capabilities intriguing," Mordin said. "Could be similar to Asari ability to induce sexual attraction in all sentient species, but more advanced. Hard to see how it could be stolen, though."

"Anyone got a theory that doesn't involve freaky powers?"

Miranda raised a finger. Shepard pointed to her. "She's crazy," she said.

Shepard nodded and the rest of the team murmured their agreement except for Mordin, who was deep in thought.

"The real question is, what was Amanda doing with her barriers down?" Garrus said. "She knew better than to leave herself open like that on Tuchanka."

"Maybe she thought her special powers would protect her," Jack quipped.

"Do we know she had them down?" Miranda asked. "What sort of rifle did our little assassin have?"

"Run-of-the-mill, low-grade sniper rifle," Garrus said. "Dime a dozen on Tuchanka. It probably had three more shots in it before the barrel cracked."

"That was a perfect shot," Shepard said. "There's no way she could have made that shot with a bargain bin rifle."

Garrus shrugged.

"Maybe she's still got some of that luck after all," Zaeed said.

"Commander!" Jacob called over Shepard's omnitool while they were still pondering the matter. "She got the drop on us and escaped. I think she's heading up to the crew deck."

"Damn it, Jacob," Shepard said as the crew rushed out of the room. "This is why we never take you on missions."

"She got away from Grunt, too!" Jacob replied.

"Oh, Grunt's a kid, you can't really blame him."

Down on the crew deck, Mary Sue dodged between startled Cerberus crew as she searched around the ship. She could usually find her way around these alliance frigates, but this one had been rearranged around the huge drive core and had an awful lot of leather seats for a military vessel. After opening doors at random and jumping at EDI's chiding at the men's room, she wandered into the mess. Before she could move on, a panel that had been awkwardly taped to the ceiling dropped down and Commander Shepard dropped through.

"There you are," he said. "Now listen up—"

Mary Sue bounded forward and punched Commander Shepard in the face. The Commander, unused to the sensation, dropped to the floor as Mary Sue jumped over him and ran into one of the escape pods. The door slammed shut and a hiss indicated that the pod had ejected.

"Commander!" Joker called over the intercom, "A ship just dropped out of stealth right behind us. EDI says it's salarian."

"Do something, Joker," Shepard ordered through the pain shooting through his head. "Spin aggressively at it or something."

Shepard felt the slight twinge of vertigo as the ship spun around. "I don't think that did anything, Commander," Joker reported.

"I didn't mean actually—"

"It's gone, commander. Picked up our escape pod and jumped to FTL. Hey, who was in that thing?"

Shepard sighed and put his hand over his eyes. When he pulled it away, Garrus stood above him.

"You alright, Commander?" he asked.

"Now I know what Khalisah al-Jilani feels like," Shepard replied.

Garrus nodded. "Yeah, well, you do kind of look like an idiot right now."


	8. Plans

The crew gathered once more in the briefing room, now missing their prisoner and some of the blood from Shepard's nose.

"Well, that was an interesting little diversion," Garrus began. "What do we do now?"

"We've got to figure out where she's going," Miranda said.

"I say we let her walk," Jack said. "You gotta give the girl some respect, she's good at what she does."

"She murdered an Alliance officer," Miranda protested.

"And Cerberus never lets that sort of thing slide," Shepard said. Miranda shot him a dirty look. "But Miranda's right," he continued, "We can't just let her get away. I, for one, want to know what the hell's going on. Do we know anything about that ship?"

"Salarian ship with stealth capabilities indicates STG," Mordin reasoned. "Presence in Aralakh system unsurprising, but collusion with lone human assassin puzzling. Could be cover for operation to prevent genophage cure, but too elaborate for short notice. Typical STG procedure in situation to strike quickly with small, heavily-armed team, eliminate all witnesses, depart without detection. Use of under-equipped foreign agent very unusual."

EDI appeared on the table and said, "Doctor Solus is correct: The salarian ship was, by all indications, an STG-operated frigate. I cannot say for certain how long it has been tracking us, but it is unlikely that it was following us before our arrival on Tuchanka. Its destination and intentions are both unclear."

"She's probably going to the Citadel," Kasumi said. Shepard almost jumped at hearing her, and the rest of the crew turned towards her voice. She usually liked to lurk in the corner, silently observing the others. "She said she was going to find where Amanda came from. If she's working with STG, then she'll probably figure out that we picked her up on the Citadel."

Shepard nodded. "Then that's where we're going. EDI, tell Joker. Everyone else, get ready. If we find her there, we are not losing her again."

The crew filed from the room, leaving Shepard, Kasumi, and Miranda behind. "That was a good call, Kasumi," Shepard said.

Kasumi shrugged. "You just have to pay attention, Shepard. I'd tell you it's about listening to people rather than shooting them but, well, you seem to shoot a lot of the people you listen to anyway." She activated her cloak and left the room.

Shepard shrugged. "Miranda?" he asked.

"We should tell The Illusive Man about this," she said.

"Don't you tell him about everything anyway?"

"I mean we should consult with him. We're completely in the dark here, and I'm beginning to feel there could be some major players at work. He might know something we don't."

"Trust me, talking to The Illusive Man is not the way to be kept in the loop on things."

"The Illusive Man wants to help you, Shepard, he just doesn't tell you privileged information when you don't need to know it."

"No, what The Illusive Man wants is to play with his toys, and he thinks I'm one of them."

"His methods may seem a bit extreme, but he gets results, Shepard. The Illusive Man is one of the few people with humanity's best interests in mind."

"Listen, The Illusive Man—okay, we really need a better name for him."

EDI's avatar appeared again on the table. "Tim," she suggested.

"Huh?" Shepard said.

"The Illusive Man. T-I-M. Tim. Variations include Timmy, Tim-Tims, and The Timster. If you would prefer an abbreviation to an acronym, I suggest 'Lusive."

"Tim-Tims it is," Shepard declared.

Miranda shot him another look.

"Fine," he said. "The Timster."

Miranda sighed in defeat.


	9. Back Again

This time, Joker didn't feel the need to pull any hairy maneuvers as they approached the Citadel. He only half paid attention as he made wide turns around the other ships. He still didn't take the course the docking official had assigned him, but that was a matter of principle.

"Hey, EDI?" he said.

"Yes, Joker?" she answered.

"There's been a lot of stuff going on in the ship lately and you haven't said much about it. Why is that?"

"I find that these problems tend to solve themselves without my interference. Besides, it is more amusing this way."

"Okay. Just checking."

"Logging you out, Mister Moreau."

The Normandy slid into its dock, and Commander Shepard walked out with Garrus, Miranda, and Kasumi following him. He stopped at the bottom of the ramp, looked around, and said, "Isn't this the same dock we met Amanda at?"

"Think they're keeping it reserved for us?" Kasumi suggested.

"I'm dead, remember? Bailey's keeping me out of the system."

"That hasn't exactly fooled anyone so far. You're kind of memorable to have around."

"All these docks look the same," Miranda said. "I don't know how you can tell the difference."

Shepard shrugged in response.

"This actually reminds me, Commander," Garrus said, "remember last time we were here, I wanted to talk to you—"

"Didn't you have to shoot someone, Garrus?"

"What?"

"Amanda said she'd tracked down someone on the Citadel you wanted to shoot before she, you know, died."

"Oh, uh, right. I should do that."

"Can you do it in, say, an hour and get back to us?"

Garrus shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

"Great. See you later, Garrus."

Garrus, slightly perplexed, walked off towards a rapid transit terminal.

"As for us," Shepard continued, "where do we start?"

"If Mary Sue's trying to trace back Commander Traver's path, we probably should too," Miranda reasoned as she activated her omnitool. "It should be pretty easy. We just check her Alliance records and…huh."

"What?"

Miranda scrutinized the readout on her omnitool. "That's odd."


	10. Office Work

Udina grumbled to himself as he typed away on his computer. He was doing paperwork, which he didn't mind—he rather liked it, actually. It reminded him of everything that people needed his approval for, and of the importance that humanity had gained in the galactic bureaucracy over the last few years. What chafed him was that this was Anderson's paperwork. That grunt had none of the skills and knowledge necessary for a political position. Ever since Anderson had been appointed to the Council, Udina had been reduced to acting as his secretary, handling the administrative tasks that left his supposed superior dumbfounded. He knew that if he'd been appointed to the Council, everything would be different, but Udina had been in politics long enough to know better than to express his honest opinion. He did the paperwork without complaint.

Something clanged in the ceiling above Udina's office. He ignored it. The Citadel had a hidden superstructure of keeper tunnels that had barely been mapped, and on the Presidium in particular you never knew where they were going to turn up. He took notice, however, when that clang was followed by another, louder one and a disheveled woman wearing an unusual outfit dropped from the ceiling.

"Who are you?" he asked. "What are you doing in here?"

By way of response, the woman pulled out a pistol and shot the computer in front of Udina. He yelped and dove behind the desk.

"You can't do this!" he called through his chattering teeth. "I work with the Councilor. This is an out—"

The woman jumped over the desk and pressed the barrel against Udina's head. "Commander Amanda Traver," she said. "Where did she come from?"

"What…w-who…"

"Commander Amanda fucking Traver! Who is that whore and where the fuck did she come from?"

"Alright, alright," Udina said. He'd always known he could become a hostage—certainly he was worth a hefty ransom—but he hadn't imagined it would be so abrupt, and he'd figured he could talk his way out of it like a boring committee meeting. After years of dealing with the council, this woman's directness might have been refreshing if it hadn't put caught him so completely off-guard. "You want to find someone?"

"I already found her and splattered her fucking brains against the wall. Now I'm going to do the same to you in a few seconds if you can't tell me where the fuck she came from before she left here with the Normandy."

"The Normandy… Alright, I can find her, but…my computer…"

The woman pulled Udina up with far more force than her thin limbs looked like they could manage, dragged him towards a desk where a secretary would sit if Udina weren't perfectly satisfied with his VI, and dropped him in front of a computer. "Good. Alright. Now, Commander Amanda Traver. That's Alliance Navy, yes? I just have to log in here—if she's on a special assignment she might be off the official records, but I have access to these things." He felt much more in control now that he was accessing records, something he was familiar with. "I'll just put in her name and…" Udina blanched.

"What is it?" the woman spat.

"I… It's nothing. I must have put the name in wrong…no, that's not it. According to our records, there is no Commander Amanda Traver in the Alliance Navy. In fact, no record exists of any human by that name. There aren't even any Amandas with similar last names." Udina looked at the woman with a mix of surprise and fear. She pistol-whipped him, and the world went black.

Udina was only knocked out for a short period, but when he came to the woman was gone and blood flowed from his nose. He leapt from his chair and burst through the door into the hall. There was no commotion of any kind. Except for the quizzical looks at the bleeding human with wild eyes, none of the passerby looked concerned. Udina ran through the halls, searching for the woman or anyone who could help him find her. After a few minutes of rushing past concerned and shocked faces, he collided with a turian.

"Oh, thank god," he said. "Someone just tried to kill me! They were holding me at gunpoint, and they were looking for someone, but I couldn't find them so they hit me!"

The turian sighed. "Listen, sir, just because I'm a turian doesn't mean I'm with C-Sec. If you need help, I suggest you—"

The turian's head exploded, showering Udina with blood and metallic chunks of carapace. He watched the turian's body drop to the ground, then screamed and ran away.


	11. Information

"What do you mean, she doesn't exist?" Shepard asked as he and his squad walked briskly through the wards.

"She's not in any Alliance records," Miranda answered, tapping busily on her omnitool, "not even the secure files. There's no reference to her in any asari, turian, salarian, or quarian records, or those of any of the minor Council races, either. I even had EDI scrub chatter in the Terminus systems for some sign of her, but there's nothing."

"Cerberus has that much access?"

Miranda shrugged. "We like to keep an eye on things. You can ask Liara to look for something, but I doubt she'll have better luck."

"Okay, well, if she doesn't exist, why did The Timster send us to pick her up?"

Miranda grimaced at her boss's new nickname. "I don't know how The Illusive Man knew about her. Maybe if we'd consulted him, like I suggested, we'd know something about that."

"Don't you keep in contact with him all the time anyway? Is it impossible for you to just ask without firing up the super secret Quantum Entanglement Communicator?"

She frowned. "I sent him a message, but he hasn't responded."

"Right. At any rate, someone in the Salarian Union has to know about her, considering that they just picked up her assassin."

"Salarian encryption is pretty hard to crack, but we've had a mole in STG for ages. There's been no mention of an assassination mission on Tuchanka, nor of an STG frigate operating in the Aralakh system."

"So either they don't know or your source isn't that great."

"They told us about Virmire before anyone else knew about it, and everything Mordin did. That's how we tracked him down, actually."

"Whatever. What about the upgrades to the Normandy? Someone must have paid for them."

"The upgrades were arranged and funded by a volus-run company that usually does military contracts for the turians when they want to avoid the official channels. There's no record of anyone paying for the service. As far as they're concerned, it was a charitable donation."

"And black-book volus contractors are such fans of those. Okay, if Amanda never existed, how about Mary Sue? Got anything on her?"

"There are twenty-seven thousand individuals with that name."

"Opposite problem. Great." Shepard paused to consider all the information as they continued walking. "So if we have no idea who either Amanda or Mary Sue are and there's no information on any of the records anywhere in the galaxy to guide us, where are we going?"

"If Mary Sue's trying to trace Amanda's steps, she's going to check the same records we are," Kasumi explained. "Given that she knew nothing about her on Tuchanka, we're guessing that she and STG are just as stumped as we are. So they're going to go up the Alliance chain of command, looking for someone who knows something not on any of the records. Which, guessing that they've traced us back to the Citadel, means…"

"The Presidium," Shepard completed. "Anderson."

They increased their pace, flying through crowds until they found the elevator to the Presidium. The elevator, unsurprisingly, still moved at Elcor pace, leaving them tapping their feet and shifting uneasily as they listened to cheerful music.

"What I don't get," Shepard eventually said, "is how none of us caught this. We've been working with this woman for weeks, and nobody thinks to do a basic extranet search?"

"Don't beat yourself up, Shepard," Kasumi said. "She caught us off-guard with all those upgrades and that plan to take out the Collectors. Nobody wants to question something that seems perfect. I know; I take advantage of it all the time for jobs. You would not believe how rarely anyone questions the idea that the girl they saw at the bar wants to see them in their room right now."

Shepard nodded as the elevator continued upwards. He wondered if the elevators were purposely designed to be slow to protect from attacks on the Presidium. C-Sec could probably set up a blockade, call for gunship support, and get everyone's blood sugar up with a hefty lunch by the time anyone could get there from the wards. It certainly hadn't helped against the Geth, though, and Shepard doubted it would stop an STG strike team.

The elevator finally arrived and Shepard stepped out with his squad. He turned a corner onto the broad walkway leading towards the embassies and stopped. In front of him, a small crowd of salarians also stopped and looked at him. They were dressed in civilian clothing, but their formation and tense stance spoke of their special operations training.

"Now hold on," Shepard said.

The salarians all pulled out concealed weapons, and Shepard and his squad dived for cover.


	12. Careful Considerations

Kelly walked into Zaeed's room, saw the other three (former) conspirators waiting for her, and sat down on an empty crate. They hadn't had a chance to talk in private since their failed gambit. However unattractive Zaeed's room was, with his collection of blood-stained souvenirs and a mysterious but definitely unsettling odor hanging in the air, it was—thanks to the Cerberus engineers directly above Jack's hole nearby, Mordin's lab being open to anyone wandering by, and Kelly having no space of her own—the only place where they could do that.

"Alright," Zaeed began, "just to be absolutely goddamn clear, no one hired the assassin?"

Mordin and Kelly shook their heads. "Shit, if I wanted to toast her, I would have done it myself," Jack said.

Kelly sighed. "This isn't how I thought this would turn out at all."

"That's what happens when you launch a mutiny, sweetheart," Zaeed said. "Life get unpredictable."

"Not a mutiny," Mordin protested. "No intention to remove Shepard from command. Simply wanted to remove possible threat to crew."

"Yeah, I figured we were doing Shepard a solid," Jack added. "It's just too bad nobody believed us."

"Irrelevant now," Mordin said. "Commander Traver dead, Mary Sue new threat to crew. Attention drawn from our misconduct."

"They haven't forgotten," Kelly said. The others nodded solemnly.

"Hmm," Mordin said.

"You got something to say?" Zaeed asked.

"Just considering," Mordin replied. "Mistrust of us by crew tempered by revelation that Traver's past less clear than originally believed. If find full story, reveal Traver's true identity, could earn trust back. If stop Mary Sue in process, all the better."

"Shepard's out doing that now," Kelly said.

"Correct, Yeoman Chambers. But could always use another mind. Different perspective, might have more insights, and can conduct more investigations in same period of time."

"Hey," Jack added, "he could get in trouble, too."

"That's right," Zaeed agreed, "might need some muscle."

The conspirators looked between themselves for a few moments, then started planning. Once they'd reached an agreement and memorized their roles, they left the room and parted for their respective positions. Kelly, by virtue of her familiarity with everyone on the ship and a reputation for innocence and naiveté, even after trying to hold the CIC hostage with a submachine gun, had the most important role. She began by calling up EDI on her terminal by the elevator after Mordin left for the lab.

"Yes, Yeoman Chambers?" EDI greeted.

"Um, well, first off EDI, I'd just like to apologize for locking you out of all the ship's systems earlier."

"Thank you, Yeoman Chambers. I actually enjoyed the opportunity to test my response to an attack from inside the ship's network. It was quite enjoyable."

"That's…wonderful, EDI. You're very welcome. I was actually thinking about what you said the other day about how you can't use your processors to their full capacity because you can't access your memory drives fast enough to compile all the information you want to, and maybe the system's a little out of date at this point."

EDI paused before responding. She had probably deduced Kelly's implications instantly, but was trying to emulate a human reaction. "I'm listening."

"Well, it's just that I heard they have these new drives out that use short-range quantum tunneling or something to speed up data access, and I was thinking that if Mordin and I happened to be wandering around on the Citadel and we ran into a tech store, then maybe we could pick up a couple of those."

"Tell me what you need, Yeoman Chambers."

"Just follow my lead." Grinning, Kelly bounced through the door to Engineering.

"Logging you out, Chambers."

Kelly stopped, waved excitedly at Jack waiting on the stairway below—she rolled her eyes in response—composed herself, and stepped through the next door.

Gabby and Ken were at their usual posts, engaged in a conversation that, like every conversation they had, would inevitably degrade into sexual innuendo before long.

"I'm just saying," Ken said, "if she had come down to Engineering instead of the Crew Deck, she might not have escaped."

"Right, Kenneth," Gabby replied. "She went right past Commander Shepard, but you would've stopped her."

"Hey now, I respect the commander as much as any man. But he's always trying to fight and shoot his way through things. If you're going to stop a woman from leaving, you have to know how to charm her. And nothing's more charming than a strong, manly accent and a properly positioned kilt."

"Hey guys," Kelly interrupted. "How's it going?"

"Fine, fine, Kelly," Gabby responded. The crew were used to Kelly showing up with a cheerful greeting and a leading question she was waiting to pounce on them with. "Ken was just saying how he was going to save the galaxy by putting on a skirt and waving around a claymore."

"Well, when you say claymore…" Ken began.

"Hey, assholes," Jack shouted as she entered the room, "which one of you stole my shirt?"

The engineers swiveled around and watched with terror as Jack approached them. "W-what?" Gabby stammered.

"My shirt! It was right there on my rack this morning, and now it's gone. Now, no one else comes down here except the shrink here, and she's too busy trying to get into the Commander's clothes to bother with mine, so which one of you shits was it?"

Kelly didn't appreciate the gibe, but she had other concerns. While Jack occupied the entirety of both engineers' attention, she covertly tapped a few buttons on the drive controls. Mordin and Zaeed had told her exactly which buttons would probably do the trick, but she still hesitated.

"I…well…I…" Ken blabbered, pale as a sheet.

"What?" Jack demanded.

"Well, it's just…I mean…I wasn't aware that you…"

"Are you trying to fucking say something?" Jack screamed.

Kelly finished, turned back, and nodded slightly to Jack. If she did her job right, the drive should begin to heat up rapidly. The safeties would kick in long before it got to dangerous levels, and the engineers would realize that if they checked their readouts, but with a little encouragement…

Alarms blared and EDI's avatar appeared. "The drive core is overheating!" she warned. "I cannot prevent it from venting into engineering. You must evacuate now!"

The engineers, amazingly, turned even paler than they were before. They rushed out into the hallway, where Grunt and Zaeed had just emerged from their rooms. "What's going on?" Grunt demanded.

"The drive core's about to vent," Kelly explained. "We have to get out of here." They piled into the elevator and Kelly pressed the button for the CIC. When they got there, Mordin was peeking out from the lab.

"Drive core's venting," Grunt said, "had to leave before we were roast varren."

"Venting could contaminate atmosphere," Mordin said, "should evacuate ship."

They turned to the engineers, who were struck speechless. They were probably skeptical, and rightly so, but they weren't used to making command decisions. Before they could make up their mind, Zaeed declared, "I want the whole goddamn crew off the ship now." With that, Joker called for the evacuation and the crew rushed for the airlock.

They gathered on the docking ramp outside, panting for breath. Joker, who had been carried out under Grunt's arm, clutched at his cracked ribs. Chakwas quickly regained her composure and asked, "Did everyone get out?"

"I was the last to get out, I think," Jacob said. "Hold on, where's Kelly?"

"She was with us," Ken said.

"So was Jack," Gabby added, "and Zaeed…and Mordin."

The crew looked around, noticing the missing crewmembers.

"Goddamn it." Jacob said.


End file.
